From the USA Today article: "As China booms, so does Mandarin in US schools" (note slide show):
The number of elementary and secondary school students studying Chinese could be as much as 10 times higher than it was seven years ago, says Marty Abbott, spokeswoman for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
When the council surveyed K-12 enrollment in foreign language classes in 2000, there were about 5,000 students of Chinese, Abbott says. The council is collecting data for another survey, but Abbott says early figures suggest the number of students now studying Chinese has "got to be somewhere around 30,000 to 50,000."
Nationwide, there are Chinese programs in more than 550 elementary, junior high and senior high schools, a 100% increase in two years, according to The Asia Society, an educational group. In May, when the College Board offered Mandarin Advanced Placement exams for the first time, 3,261 high school students took the test.
At the college level, enrollment in Chinese-language classes has increased 51% since 2002, according to the Modern Language Association, a language and literature education organization.
Spanish remains far and away the most popular foreign language for U.S. students: It's the choice of 80% of those who study a foreign language in America's grade and high schools, Abbott says. French is a distant second, with Latin and German vying for third-most-popular foreign language.
"But I think what's going to surprise everyone in this next survey we do is how close Mandarin is going to come to Latin and German," she says. "Chinese isn't the new French — it's the new English," says Robert Davis, director of the Chinese-language program in Chicago's public school system, which has 8,000 students studying Mandarin.
And about Portland:
The number of elementary and secondary school students studying Chinese could be as much as 10 times higher than it was seven years ago, says Marty Abbott, spokeswoman for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
When the council surveyed K-12 enrollment in foreign language classes in 2000, there were about 5,000 students of Chinese, Abbott says. The council is collecting data for another survey, but Abbott says early figures suggest the number of students now studying Chinese has "got to be somewhere around 30,000 to 50,000."
Nationwide, there are Chinese programs in more than 550 elementary, junior high and senior high schools, a 100% increase in two years, according to The Asia Society, an educational group. In May, when the College Board offered Mandarin Advanced Placement exams for the first time, 3,261 high school students took the test.
At the college level, enrollment in Chinese-language classes has increased 51% since 2002, according to the Modern Language Association, a language and literature education organization.
Spanish remains far and away the most popular foreign language for U.S. students: It's the choice of 80% of those who study a foreign language in America's grade and high schools, Abbott says. French is a distant second, with Latin and German vying for third-most-popular foreign language.
"But I think what's going to surprise everyone in this next survey we do is how close Mandarin is going to come to Latin and German," she says. "Chinese isn't the new French — it's the new English," says Robert Davis, director of the Chinese-language program in Chicago's public school system, which has 8,000 students studying Mandarin.
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